Short Irish Documentary to Premiere at Mecal Pro in Barcelona this April 2011
Film Title: Car Park Cultivation
Tagline: Turning tarmac into dinner!
About the film:
The plot on the busy South Circular Road in Dublin city was an abandoned car parking lot. It was covered in old, scrubby tarmac and, like countless other sites in Ireland in 2007, it was in the queue for planning permission to develop it into a 3-story apartment block. Then the
landowner gave permission for a group of residents to use the site as a temporary community garden...
This short, site-specific documentary is a film about the people who have transformed this abandoned car park in the city into a thriving oasis of biodiversity. They acknowledge some of the challenges that come from working communally, and they gently disclose some of the quiet joys they reap from getting their hands dirty each week with other folk from their neighbourhood.
Directed, Filmed and Edited by:
Nigel Heather & Aoibheann O'Sullivan (Tuned In, 8 Things to Remember, Forty Foot)
* Date of screening: Sunday the 17th April at 16h00.
* Venue: CINES MALDÀ, C/ Pi (Ciutat Vella) 5, 08002 Barcelona
Longer Analysis:
The charming simplicity of this community garden belies deeper, less obvious, socio-political complexities. In growing their own food these neighbours casually turn their back on the global food market with it’s escalating prices and carbon emissions; by growing organic food and seed saving they resist the genetic ownership and the copyrighting of nature; and by growing food communally in a voluntary, not-for-profit way in a small plot in Dublin earmarked for development since 2007 one could nearly believe that the corpse of the property-focused Celtic tiger just might make excellent compost. This is more than vegetables, it is spores of resistance, germinating action and blossoming community.
Due to Ireland’s economic downturn it is unlikely the apartment development on this piece of land will go ahead any time in the near future, and this garden is now part of a budding network of community gardens that are flourishing in disused plots and abandoned sites around the country.
